One Halloween costume down and one to go….
Addie is in LOVE with her new mermaid tail/skirt. The swim top that came in last week’s grab bag purchase from Ruffle Butts worked out perfect to complete the outfit.
Up next on the to do list….Dalton’s shark jacket.
It’s Monday again! Addie and I headed out to one of the largest parks in Schertz to enjoy a picnic lunch and playtime with friends. This week, two of her best friends (and a little sister) were able to join us. She has soooo much fun playing with her friends and I enjoy the wonderful company of the moms. The weather around here is starting to spoil us too! It was cool enough this morning that Addie even took a little jacket. (Cool enough for this family of Texans is about 80 degrees.)
This past weekend we took advantage of yet another Groupon (can you tell I’m a sucker for a good deal) and went to the Institute of Texan Cultures (ITC). I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I figured we would be in and out in an hour or so once the kids started getting bored. Boy was I wrong! ITC is a hidden treasure of San Antonio. The exhibits were what you would expect….lots of different things behind glass to look at and read about. However, the demonstrations were amazing. There were probably less than 20 people in the entire museum, which means the kids were able to be front in center for everything.
Here they are in front of one of the Native American exhibits. It was fun to get to share with Dalton the different types of homes the Native Americans would live in and how you could learn a lot about their way of life just by looking at their homes. I think Addie got a little bored, but Dalton seemed to enjoy learning about the different lifestyles.
They both enjoyed looking at some of the different styles of clothing influenced by the different cultures. They are pictured with their favorites of the day.
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Here they are inside a life size replica of a traditional frontier home. They were amazed at how small homes once were and that it only had two rooms. They both thought using newspaper to paper the walls was pretty cool.
By far the best part of ITC was the demonstration of how to turn wool and cotton into yarn and blankets. This sweet little lady was so patient with the kids. She showed them how to use a drop spindle, spinning wheel, loom and even how to comb out the cotton. They both were able to take turns using all the different pieces. She also let them each pick out two pieces of colored wool to make friendship bracelets.
We had a great time! It was definitely worth the Groupon (and probably even full price)!
Addie and I just finished up Day 6 of preschool. Since I’ve been terrible about scrapbooking since she was born, I’ve decided to use the blog to record our progress throughout the year. Periodically, I’ll post some “progress reports” of our studies. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to use the blog to go back and scrapbook all of these wonderful memories. (Plus, it gives me a chance to brag on my little smarty pants to the grandparents.) I also enjoy going back and reading old blog posts when I’m having one of those less than perfect “Mothering Days”. It is a good reminder that on days when I feel like I’m doing everything wrong, there are some wonderful memories made in the process.
After just six days of “preschool”, Addie can:
1. Successfully count to 20. She can probably count all the way to 100 if given the chance. She’s been able to count to her version of 20 for some time now, but for about the last year she would always get to 15 and skip around (usually to the effect of 15, 19, 18, 16, 20) and then continue on. We’ve also been counting to 100 by 10’s which she successfully did on her own this morning. Putting the two skills together, I think she could get to 100. We count to 100 every day using a song and dance number, but to just have her rote count to 100 would be a little torturous for both of us right now.
2. Fully understands the concept of silent e. We’ve talked about it since last year but today she was able to put the skill to use without prompts from me. We do a group of word families each day. I purposely did –at words yesterday (cat, hat, rat) and –ate words (Kate, gate, late) today. She read both sets of words like it was second nature.
3. Is using Spanish to count to 10 and name colors again. She’s known her numbers and colors since Dalton entered the dual language program in Kinder, but we had fallen out of the habit of using Spanish in the home over the summer months. We are getting back into it and she really seems to enjoy it.
4. Mastered using scissors to cut out just about any shape, without all the little jagged edges and 100’s of little scraps of paper on the floor. This was one of two pet peeves of mine when I taught kinder. So many kids come to school having never used a pair of scissors before. It’s a skill that really takes some one-on-one supervision and poor kinder teachers do not have the time to do it. I vowed that both of my children would go to school knowing how to properly use scissors. (My other pet peeve, in case you are wondering, is teaching children to write their name properly…..only the first letter should be capitalized unless they have a unique name. It is SO hard for teachers to reteach children to write their name properly.)
5. Can read the calendar to recite the full date. (Ex. Today is Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012.) She can also use the calendar to tell me what today is, yesterday was and what tomorrow will be. She is beginning to understand the concepts of 7 days in a week, 12 months in a year, 4 seasons in a year, different weather types go with each season, the season we are currently in, etc. I wouldn’t say she’s mastered any of those skills yet. The concept of measuring time is very hard for little ones. She is aware that they exist and can name the days, months and seasons along with our songs. We also use the calendar dates to display patterns. She can correctly identify and extend any AB, AABB, or ABC pattern I’ve given her thus far.
6. Is learning the names and values of coins. Blake has been working with her on this since her 4th birthday and she started having chores. She can name the 4 main coins and their values about 90% of the time. I saw a cute idea on pinterest to “Make the Date” with money. We’ve been doing that on a daily basis. I think it will help quite a bit, but I still have to offer her a lot of assistance figuring out what coins we need especially when we skip days from Friday’s lessons to Tuesday’s lessons.
7. Is able to understand the concept of even and odd numbers using our “Even Stephen/Odd Todd” chart. If given a number at random, she would probably stare blankly back at you though. We also do a place value chart each day. Since we are only on day 6 of school, we haven’t advanced past the ones place value yet so I’m pretty sure that concept is still lost on her.
8. Can make and read a simple bar graph. We graph the weather each day, where she adds a stamp to that row of the bar graph. We talk about which type of weather has more than others, less than others, the same as others and how many more than others. I still do a lot of guiding in this area, but she’s caught on quickly. She also understands that hotter temperatures cause the thermometer to rise and cooler temperatures cause the thermometer to drop.
9. She also loves to write. Her handwriting (in my opinion) is beautiful for a four year old. She understands sentences start with a capital and end with a period. I’ll introduce the concept of different types of punctuation later.
That’s about it for now. I’m looking forward to recording her progress throughout the year and then reminiscing over these times when she no longer fits into my lap.
Addie: Hey, mom! Do you know that princesses only drink tea all day?
Me: No, I didn’t know that. They don’t do anything else?
Addie: Well, they have to pick out their dresses. Then they just dance and dance and dance.
Me: Oh!
Addie: Doesn’t that sound boring?
Me: Well maybe a little. Are you sure they don’t do anything else?
Addie: Well they have to pick out their earrings and necklaces and lip color stuff. But that would just be so boring. Don’t you think it would be boring mom? Boring, boring, boring!
Me: So do you want to be a princess?
Addie: No! I’m going to be a mermaid.
Guess this gives me a little insight as to why she wants to be a mermaid for Halloween this year. We are going to attempt to make something that looks like this:
Dalton wants to be a shark this year. So we’ll attempt to make this:
The first few years we had both kids, I was able to coordinate their costumes with little protest. Hungry Caterpillar and the beautiful butterfly then Little Red and the Big, Bad Wolf. The last two years, they’ve gone in opposite directions. Dinosaur (yes, this was Addie) and a Ninja Turtle then a Skeleton and Princess Belle. This year they came up with the costumes all on their own. I’m excited that they’ll appear to have a theme again this year.
Addie is quickly growing up, which can only mean one thing…..her friends are too! Most of Addie’s closest friends are girls she has met and played with at the gym over the last two years. Unfortunately, most of them are now attending Pre-K anywhere from 2-5 days a week. She quickly noticed their absence from the gym once summer was over and school was back in session. Knowing that my little social butterfly needs her daily dose of friend interaction, we quickly decided to form the Monday Lunch Bunch. We’ve decided to take advantage of the cooler fall weather and meet at a different park each week to enjoy a picnic lunch and some playtime (aka social time for us big girls). We could not have asked for a more perfect day to kick-off our lunch bunch group this week. Addie and I decided to get there a few minutes early so we could enjoy some time just to ourselves before our friends showed up. She loves playing with her friends and I enjoy the adult interaction, but it is also nice to do something with her where I am able to give her my undivided attention. Getting there early and meeting friends a little later gives us the best of both worlds!
Here is my little princess enjoying some time at the park on a beautiful day…
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Here we are before our race down the slides…..she won!
I am so blessed that I am able to have this year at home with Addie before I turn her over to the influences of public school next year. I hope and pray that I am able to continue to take advantage of all the little moments like this in the upcoming year.
It was Thursday night, the boys were off at karate once again, which means Addie and I headed back into the kitchen for some Mommy-Daughter bonding time. This week’s menu: Pancakes for the freezer. I’m calling this edition the Pancake Plan mostly because pancakes are the fallback plan when I didn’t take time before my grocery shopping trip on the previous Sunday to come up with a better plan and buy the necessary supplies. I recently decided to stop buying pancake mix and try out some “homemade” recipes. After two so-so recipes, Addie and I finally found a wonderful, fluffy, homemade but easy pancake recipe. And you can never have too many pancakes in the freezer. They make such a quick and easy go-to breakfast on the mornings I don’t make time to cook eggs and bacon.
I let Addie do a lot of the measuring and mixing again this week, which means we got a little messy and I didn’t take any pictures due to messy hands during this step. I also let her take a little more active role in flipping the pancakes in the pan. She really seemed to enjoy this and listens very well on how to behave around the hot stove. She did manage to hold her hand over the pan a little too long at one point and developed a little bit of a steam burn but she didn’t even show it to me until the next day. She’s one tough little girl when it comes to getting hurt!
Here she is patiently watching the batter bubble and flipping her very first pancakes…
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Of course we could not put ALL the pancakes in the freezer. We had to taste test a few to make sure they were edible
Labor Day has come and gone, which means it was time for Addie and I to hit the books. We officially kicked off her year as a Pre-K student on the Tuesday, September 4th. She was super excited!
Here she is standing proud on her first day of Pre-K (homeschool edition)…
Apparently she grew about two feet over the Labor Day Holiday. I’m quite certain she wasn’t that tall on Dalton’s first day of 2nd grade. I can’t even begin to imagine what her “First Day of Kinder” pictures will look like next year. (sniff, sniff)
Our first week, we focused on getting into our new routines. We learned about the calendar…
We sang songs…
We practiced counting to 100 and gave Mrs. Caterpillar a makeover. Mrs. Caterpillar was Mr. Caterpillar until we added the bow.
We reviewed our colors in Spanish…
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We also practiced reading and writing some of our sight words and word family words. Addie loves to “write”. She is constantly writing notes and letters to her friends.
All in all, we had a great first week of school. I hope the enthusiasm (both mine and hers) continues into the months to come.
